


nothing real

by pyrokinetic



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Short One Shot, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 04:39:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15901068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrokinetic/pseuds/pyrokinetic
Summary: Some ghosts are just demons.Suspicion sets Hamlet on a different path.





	nothing real

**Author's Note:**

> title from hyperthmesia by adjy 
> 
> this is so short but i feel like its about as finished as it ever will be, since its been sitting in my drafts for ages, so enjoy!

“The spirit that I have seen  
May be a devil, and the devil has power  
To assume a pleasing shape”

\- Act 2 Scene 2, Lines 517-9 

* * *

  

The land is marshy where it should not be. Feet sink into earth, a suction aiming to render them ever downward into Hell. Wisps of fog conceal the tree line, peering into them is an impossibility. A chill burrows itself deep in the Prince’s chest and stays there, coiled in a monstrous pang of emotion. He follows the figure before him, shaped like a man but not. The late king, but not.  
  
Some ghosts are just demons, he thinks, and steels his heart.

 

-

 

When his gaze finds his uncle-father, Hamlet feels a different kind of fear. Of what was, of what could be. He deliberately leans into the man’s hand, lightly placed against his shoulder. He is not a threat. He is not a threat.  
  
He finds his mother smiling.

 

-

 

The cold still wraps around his lungs. It hurts. He hurts.  
  
Horatio stops him in the hallway, hand warm enough to burn, Hamlet flinches away, but the hand stays.  
  
“Are you all right?”  
  
A loaded question. Hamlet is likely to burst into flame or do something he will regret. By murdering his uncle-father he will be no better. The surely inhuman ache in his chest would abate, and yet.  
  
There is a struggle to keep his mouth closed around all of the words that build up inside him, that layer over each other, writhing in a mass so deep that light cannot penetrate their surface. If he speaks them, he will drown.  
  
So he says, “I am fine.” And swallows, and breathes, and leaves.

 

-

 

He cries at night, when he is alone with the moon peering through his curtains and lamplight fluttering in an unseen breeze.  
  
It still feels like the Court is watching him.

 

-

 

Horatio returns to Edinburg to study Latin and Philosophy.  
  
So does Rosencrantz.  
  
So does Guildenstern.

  
  
Hamlet stays in Elsinore.  
  
So does Ophelia.  
  
So does the Ghost.

 

-

 

A mantra: I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

The tight grip of the gauntlet on Hamlet's shoulder. A demon in the shape of his father, furious. Its gaze sears his back, but he will not face it.

Have strength, turn not to evil. Have strength.

I'm sorry.

 

Hamlet trembles, stood on the edge of a great tower. He savors the biting chill of wind in his hair.

Down to his blood, he is cursed to want or to wander. The rising sun's light glints off of a dagger.

Have strength; he is coming home.

 

-

 

The funeral for the late Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, is not public. The true cause of his death is buried under half-truths and the sort of love that lets one not die in vain, nor infamy.  
  
Hamlet, wraithlike and ethereal beside his father’s own ghost, wants, but he cannot conceive of what for.


End file.
